riverviewlogs | player-suggested mini-event: A STRANGER'S BED

Entry tags:

player-suggested mini-event: A STRANGER'S BED

who: everyone in Riverview!
what: Player-Suggested Mini-Event
when: August 26th - August 31st
warnings: please put any necessary warnings in the subject lines

a stranger's bed

As a lead in to September, Riverview's ♥ Month of Romance, this is a completely optional mingle that will cause affected characters to end up in each other's beds. There are various options for both established and new CR. While it's easiest for characters still living in Communal Housing, anyone who has moved to their own homes can be affected and end up finding their way to Communal Housing, or within their own housing.

Residents of the Quarantine may notice that various businesses selling food and drink - cafés, diners, bakeries, restaurants, and other such establishments - are heavily advertising a new flavor that's supposed to be the biggest thing since pumpkin spice. A flavor additive that's said to subtly change the flavor of whatever the diner is eating or drinking to optimize the dish, drink, dessert, or any other food item it is added to for each person's individual taste, it's been selling like wildfire and is the latest trend.

After the cause of the rash of amnesia was revealed to be plant-related, sellers are keeping the origin of the secret ingredient very close to their chests, since it is a derivative of a recently-discovered plant dubbed chameleonis. Depending on the method of ingestion, this additive can have a variety of unexpected side effects, but only once the person who has ingested it becomes sleepy. Methods of ingestion include:

● Ingestion: Beverage: When ingested as a flavor shot to drinks ranging from sodas to coffee to alcoholic beverages, it can cause a desire for closeness to a particular other person. Affected characters end up crawling into bed with that specific other character when they become sleepy.

● Ingestion: Food: When ingested as a flavoring added to a baked good or other meal, it can cause an intense desire for body heat when the character becomes drowsy. It won't matter to an affected character who is providing the body heat, so long as it's someone, and they will end up sleepily crawling into someone else's bed for warmth.

● Inhalation: When inhaled ether from a steaming hot beverage or soup, or as an essential oil or aroma from a bakery, it can cause disorientation when a character becomes sleepy. Affected characters either aren't sure which bed is theirs and simply crawl into the closest one, occupied or not, or become convinced that another character's bed is their own.

Feel free to post up a top-level for your own character either affected and invading a random bed or unaffected but open to having their bed invaded by affected characters, or tag around to other people's top-levels.

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Once the apartment building had been set to rights, Cassian had gone back to his own room and Jyn found that her sleep had gone back to being as erratic and filled with nightmares as before. Waking up sweaty from unremembered nightmares didn't used to bother her but in the span of just a few days she got used to the familiar weight of Cassian next to her.

She pushes it aside, ignores it. She refuses to give into the weakness of maybe possibly needing someone else in her life. Jyn Erso hasn't needed anyone but herself since she was fifteen.

All it takes is a hot chocolate, peppered with something warm and creamy.

The idea of a non-alcoholic drink causing her inhibitions to completely crumble is so foreign to Jyn it doesn't occur to her that wanting to see Cassian as she climbs into bed might be a byproduct of her cocoa. She just assumes, as she drags the blanket over her, that she'd gotten used to having him around and now it feels wrong somehow. She stubbornly ignores it but it still wins out in the end.

Which finds her knocking on Cassian's door in the middle of the night with a pillow clutched to her chest.

Cassian is used to sleeping in all manner of places. He doesn't even need a bed. He's also very aware that sharing with Jyn while his apartment was being repaired allowed him some of the best sleep he'd had in years, but instead of thinking about it, he just goes back to his own space with little external fight.

And back to restless sleep. Not even the extra pillow lets him get comfortable enough to stay rested through the night, because it's not a person he decided to trust against all better judgement. He wouldn't say he needed Jyn to sleep well, but he's clearly awake when she knocks on his door.

He frowns on the automatic assumption that it's her, but it isn't like anyone else would be coming to him here this late. He slips out of bed and opens the door, stepping back to let her inside without issue.

She has a pillow. "Is everything okay?"

He's all rumpled and briefly Jyn feels bad that she woke him or at the very least pulled him from bed, but that doesn't stop her from barreling right into his room. "I can't sleep."

That doesn't mean everything is either okay or not okay, it's just a statement.

A rather large statement, considering she can't sleep and came to him.

His apartment looks bigger in the dark, like there are more hidden spaces she can't see tucked out of sight, yawning holes of darkness not illuminated by the few lamps he must have turned on to let her in.

He closes the door once she's inside, like it's a very normal occurrence to welcome Jyn in the middle of the night. He locks it on mindless instinct, frowning at her easy admission for a couple reasons. The simple fact that she couldn't sleep for one, and his shared insomnia for another.

But she came to him because of it. "Do you want something to eat? Drink?" How does someone be a good host for this??

His blankets are a mess, like he was tossing and turning. It's not okay and she's not okay; neither is he, but he does feel a little better with her in the room. He spares a glance towards the messy bed, not wanting her to feel intruding or alone. "I was not sleeping so well either."

Jyn nods, taking in the state of the room before nodding again, everything a little bit slower than usual, pillow still clutched to her chest. She doesn't want to talk about how both of them sleep for shit, she's not surprised by that. She'd be surprised if either of them didn't have trouble sleeping, it either of them weren't plagued by nightmares.

She pads further inside, thoughtful, and slumps down on the very edge of the couch, eyes drifting up slowly to look at him.

"I'm not hungry. Have you ever had hot chocolate?" She isn't thinking about it because she thinks it is behind her traitorous desire to curl up in bed next to him, but simply because it's a novelty.

He can't tell if the slow nod is because she's tired or something else is on her mind, but either way it's clear she doesn't want to actually talk about it. He won't press it. As different as they can be, he knows they share that much in common. Talking is too much. It's fine, they're fine, nightmares are par for the course.

Cassian trails after her, meeting her gaze while he tries to decide the best place to sit. He doesn't like standing over her and making it feel like he's looming. He blinks though, finally settling on the edge of the bed. "Not for a very very long time. Why?"

Edited 2017-09-18 21:37 (UTC)

"It's delicious." Beyond delicious, like absurdly delicious, and Jyn's been daydreaming about it all day, until she's gotten sleep and started daydreaming about... well, now she's forcing herself to think about hot chocolate again.

She doesn't ever remember having it on Lah'mu and she knows Saw didn't have any on Wrea, but maybe she'd been treated to little sips on Coruscant before they fled. In any case, it's quickly become her Favorite form of chocolate.

"I'd gone to get some caf, which is garbage, but the sales person gave me hot chocolate instead." Which, as already mentioned, is amazing.

His face softens when she starts to rave about it, and somehow the fact that it's night and the lights are dim makes it easier for him to let himself. It's easier than trying to hold it in and adding more tension to his tired body.

"It was very rare at Base One. Some planets had it, but I did not often get the chance. Should I take your fawning recommendation as a hint to try what they have here?"

He thinks maybe it's teasing?? But that's also kind of weird, so maybe it's a cross between genuine and teasing.

"Maybe not a hint. A suggestion," she decides. Hints are for games, playful, she doesn't know if that is something she's even capable of, it's so normal. She still doesn't know how to really interact with anyone outside of the war that encompassed her entire life. It's easier with Cassian, but still...

Odd.

She tucks her chin on to the pillow in her lap, trying to find a way to broach staying with Cassian when there isn't a built in reason like a fire. She's not going to set a fire to give herself a reason either.

Admittedly, she had thought about it.

"Close enough. You'll have to show me where you got it from."

Something about the way she sits there with the pillow makes his stomach roll over. She looks like she wants to get comfortable. Like she wants to... stay? In the very back of his mind, Cassian knows there's a part of him that misses the strange security that came from sleeping beside her.

He tries to be cool and calm and casual, but he is maybe a little nervous when he decides to just go for it, gesturing vaguely at the couch. She did bring her favorite pillow though. "You can stay here tonight, if you don't want to go back down."

"Yeah, alright."

Is Jyn agreeing to show him the hot chocolate or to stay on his couch for the night. Maybe both, probably both, but who knows honestly because she doesn't take the time to clarify.

She does settle her pillow next to her on the couch, aimlessly kneading it until it sits in a way that she likes, before she simply lays down with no further ado. She isn't going to argue getting her way and she certainly isn't going to question whether or not he is sure. He offered, she accepted, end of story, Jyn is sleeping on Cassian's couch.

Whichever she's agreeing to, he's apparently fine with, because he doesn't ask for clarification either. Once she settles in and lays down on his couch, Cassian too feels a little more settled. There's an extra blanket on his bed, so he stands up and pulls it off, tossing it at her. He doesn't tuck her in, that'd just be too weird, but he already knows she's a blanket hog.

He remains standing awkwardly for a few moments, then climbs back into his bed. He looks over at her on the couch, like he's confirming she's still there, and can't quite figure out what to say that won't make it weirder.

"Good night, Jyn."

Nailed it.

Jyn takes the blanket gratefully, tucking herself in and settling down to maybe sleep. She settles further at his good night, smiling to herself under the blanket before she closes her eyes.

Sleep still doesn't come, elusive, and she can't seem to get comfortable either, tossing and turning on the couch. It's a comfortable couch, not too warm or cold, not too soft or firm. It's fine for sleeping and it's not like she wouldn't happily take a nap on this couch any time. But she can't sleep now.

Eventually, silently, Jyn stands up and pads over to Cassian's bed, blanket wrapped around her shoulders, feeling calmer the closer she gets. Without saying anything, she crawls onto the bed, settling on her side next to him, facing the wall. She already more comfortable with Cassian at her back, comforted with his proximity, but she fidgets, still unable to sleep.

It takes him a few minutes, but he closes his eyes in his own attempt to sleep. It's not very successful. He mostly dozes, jerking awake now and then, listening to the sounds of Jyn's restlessness.

He's awake when he hears her get up off the couch and move towards his bed. He could stop it easily, just speak up and say virtually anything and Jyn would go back to the couch - but he doesn't. She crawls up beside him and he feels himself relaxing. The bed is tiny, but she leaves enough space so they aren't touching - not that it matters, because he can practically feel her body heat anyway from how close she is.

They should be able to sleep now, but he can tell it's still eluding them both. Cassian is overtired, which is what probably lets him make the rash decision to move a little, letting his back brush against hers.

This isn't different from when he'd stayed in her room. And yet it was a lot less awkward sharing her bed somehow, it had been easier to be shoved up against him when the other option was tripping over him when he'd been laying on the floor. Maybe it's because she has somewhere perfectly acceptable to sleep -- the very comfortable couch -- but instead she's here.

When he shifts, she breathes more comfortably, but still... can't sleep.

Eventually, she gives in to her sleepy impulses and rolls over to face Cassian's back, familiar enough, almost like they're huddled in the cockpit again. Jyn's forehead presses against his shoulders, knees brushing against the back of his thighs, one hand curled between them, knuckles brushing where his injury had been without even thinking about it. Her other hand stays laying across her own body, but eventually, when Cassian doesn't pull away, Jyn drapes her arm around his chest, holding him like a teddy bear.

Now she is comfortable.

Edited 2017-10-04 17:37 (UTC)

Cassian doesn't know what makes it feel odd. It's not like they weren't sharing Jyn's bed for a few days already. Maybe it was the middle of the night frustration that allowed it in the first place, versus tonight where it's much more... quiet.

It's comfortable to feel her behind him, if not enough to sleep. But it's even better when she rolls into him, pressing her face into his back, knees into his legs, feeling the gentle touch on his spine and feeling safe instead of scared she knows where he was hurt. She's warm. She fits.

He should be awkward. He should stiffen. Instead it's a relief, and he lets her stay there and lets a small smile slip onto his face when her arm drops over him too. One of his hands carefully moves up, resting on and winding his fingers loosely through hers.

He could get used to this, maybe.

The way he shifts makes her nervous, a fleeting anxiety that she's done something not allowed and then he is holding her hand. Not to move it, but to hold on to it and that is a new feeling. He wants her there, like she wants to be there.

Usually that would be so terrifying to Jyn and yet now, warm and safe at his back, sleepy, she just feels... calm.

Absently, almost as if without thinking, she squeezes his hand, nestling closer to him, breath warm against his back. Maybe she should say something, but Jyn hates talking on a good day and she doesn't even know what she would say? Thank you? Cassian would brush it off. Good night? She already said. It doesn't matter, Cassian will know.

Welcome home.

He worries that maybe the hand holding will be too much, like everything else isn't a lot already, but all he feels is Jyn calm behind him. She even squeezes his hand and burrows in closer. To him. Because she wants to.

Part of him is terrified to have this much trust in a person at his back, but the other part is grateful to feel this safe for once. It's nice to feel like he doesn't need words. It's nice to know exactly what Jyn means even without a single sound.

They're not on Yavin 4, they're not even in the same galaxy, but welcome home still rings true, because it was never really about the place. It was them. It would be easy to brush it off as just welcoming her to the Rebellion, but deep down Cassian knows he meant them, together.

It isn't a dreamless sleep, Jyn still has nightmares no matter how comfortable she is, but now there is a thread of guilt in the dreams. Why her? Why does she get to survive when Baze didn't? When Bodhi didn't? When Chirrut and Tonc and Sefla and Melshi and all of the rebels died on the beaches of Scarif. Why her instead of Saw or Maia or her parents.

She doesn't toss as much bracketed against Cassian but her sleep is still not restful and eventually one nightmare draws her to consciousness with a gasp, a choked scream, the grip on Cassian's hand painfully tight.

"No!"

He sleeps easier with Jyn at his back, something he noticed the first few nights it happened while he stayed in her apartment. It isn't dreamless for him either, but it's enough to keep some of his own worse recurring nightmares at bay.

Cassian can feel her tensing against him and it stirs him, just before she jerks awake. The yell pulls him out of sleep immediately, alert like he wasn't even resting. He rolls over to face her without letting go of her hand, and he reacts without thinking. It's not the same as Bodhi's quiet trauma back on Jedha, but he still slips easily into dealing with it. He doesn't even question it with Jyn anymore.

"Jyn." Calm, careful, soothing. A name to remind her of where and who she is. His other hand reaches out to cover hers. "Jyn, can you look at me?"

Jyn jerks at her own name, breaths unsteady, eyes unfocused as she instinctively looks up at him. It doesn't take her very long to focus, blinking away tears that trickle down her cheeks. Her expression crumples when her mind manages to catch up and recognize Cassian, but she tries to straighten it out, force away the weakness.

"I'm fine." She is not fine, but she is conscious, she is cognizant, that is really all she can ask for right now, all she could hope for. She's not sobbing and she's not fighting him.

She's fine.

She is definitely not fine. There's a very small pinch of relief that she isn't thrashing or trapped in the dream, but it doesn't make her fine. He again moves without thinking, lifting that same hand and cradling her face gently while he still holds her hand with the other, uncaring about the wetness from her tears.

"Jyn." Name repetition, soft and steady, combined with the pressure of touch. It's not the first time he's had to pull her from her own head, but it's far gentler than before. They're in a bed rather than needing to run away for their lives, and he has the time to be so. "I'm right here. You are safe."

He is right there, she is safe. Isn't that how it's always been? For the brief period of time they'd known each other at least. Always seeming to slip out of impossible scrapes, together. At least until Scarif, but it was impossible they even made it that far.

Which brings her full circle to her nightmare.

He is right there, she is safe. She nods, slow and careful, licks her lips. "How did you get to the top of the tower?"

He'd fallen so far, she'd heard the crunch and crack of so many bones every time his body slammed into something hard and metal, she'd seen him laying at the bottom in a broken heap, still and unmoving, and she'd known that the man in white had done it again. Her mother and then her father (and Saw before that, she knows), and now Cassian.

But he hadn't and Cassian had somehow survived and saved her and how?

His mouth opens in a little 'o,' somewhat surprised by the question. It's not a memory he likes to think on, even though it fills his own dreams quite often. He resists the urge to reach back and check that his spine is fixed here.

He doesn't move his hands, still cradling her face with one and winding their fingers together with the other. "A lot of it is a blur," he admits. His thumb slides on her cheek idly. The entire memory of the trek is blinded by the pain of his broken body that the exact how is honestly still coming back in pieces. "I got out of the vault, and there was an elevator for the rest of it. I just thought... I am dead anyway, it did not matter how much more pain it took to get back up."

To get back to her.

Jyn frowns through his explanation, expression threatening to crumple when he admits what he was thinking as he carried on. Jyn has already imagined him to be dead, she doesn't want to dwell on it. Even if it had become part of their reality, together.

"I thought..." Of course he'd taken an elevator. Now that he says it, it makes complete sense. They were supposed to take the elevator up to begin with, but circumstance had changed their plan when K2 locked them into the vault and they'd been forced to climb.

She breathes out, slow, pushing down the swell of vertigo that threatened to overwhelm her again. He'd put into words, at least, how she'd managed to keep going after everything. There was no reason to let the pain get to her, it was going to be over soon anyway.

player-suggested mini-event: A STRANGER'S BED

closed ✧ to cassian

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